Momster Gina Ritter is a writer and stand-up comic for the Bay Area, Sacramento, Pacific Northwest, and beyond. Snarky, smart, and comfortable on any stage, she's a solid hit with men, women and felons alike.

That time our cat disowned us.

I learned that we are sharing custody of my oldest cat, Sir Spotticus of NapaKin, apparently.

He’d go over there and let the man pet him in exchange for a share of the man’s other outdoor cat’s kibble.

He hates people though, I thought to myself.

The resident outdoor cat didn’t seem to mind.

But he hates other cats too! How is this possible, I thought.

Spot even waited in the driveway for the man’s return if the food was late. Funny. But not cool, Spot. Not cool.

Then he’d come home willy nilly to eat and sleep and ignore me whenever he wanted.

It made me wonder how many neighbors he did this to. How many of them were getting the love and allowed the hugs he refused me?

Cat food whore.

Essentially he’d become a prostitute, allowing people to touch him in exchange for food. Why else would he do this? Because he hates everyone otherwise.

Or maybe he just hates us.

That made me sad, of course. I mean, I’m not so bad, right? RIGHT?!

But what do you do about your cat running away? Surely if you set something free, it will come back to you… or it was never meant to be. Pfft. I didn’t want to hear that. He’s a cat. My cat.

And setting him free didn’t work because later he came home less and less.

I started to worry more about my cat running away and less about me. Would he get hurt? How would I know? But I figured he just enjoyed their food and the solo resident cat there better.

Eventually he stopped coming home altogether.

So I pretty much got over my cat running away. He was always like a bad husband to me anyway and I’ve been divorced twice. Three times now, if you count the cat.

But a few months later, the man stops by again and says Spot is fine and is still there every day for food.

This just brought back the emotions about my cat running away. Spot doesn’t get to go in this man’s house, so why won’t he come home?

I’m now feeling like such a loser that MY cat, who could come home and have a nice, warm place to sleep, would rather be an outdoor cat full time, waiting for a few bites to eat.

I try to take solace in it and think it’s less about my cat running away and disowning me and more about him being happy. He seems to have adopted a human.

And that guy seems like a nice human.

But I’m human too, and my cat has disowned me and now I want to know why but he refuses to come home and tell me.

Maybe a year after he first took off, I saw him sitting on the sidewalk across from my house, just staring at me for a minute. I called out to him and he trotted off. I couldn’t tell if he was checking up on us or if he would have flipped me the bird if he’d had a middle finger to do so.

I fostered and adopted this grumpy cat after he was abandoned at three-years-old by his family. I fell in love with him and treated him like a king and he just abandons my love?

Cats can be so careless about their human’s emotions.

But meh. I now have a few extra bucks to cry into — he was a big eater.

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